I'm making or redoing a total of five different backdrop areas on my layout during my current revisions so it may get a little confusing which is which. This was the biggest eyesore on my layout before I started my work.
I decided to use foamcore board as the backdrop and Amer-Towne building panels as building fronts just because - other methods might (and do) work and I even used them elsewhere. But I wanted to try this approach here. As is often the case, there may be "wrong answers" about how to build a backdrop, etc., but there is certainly more than one "right answer."
Before: the photo below shows the nearly six foot wide by nearly thirty inch high blank area of acoustic tile patched with newspaper on one edge, in just about the most obvious spot anyone - visitors, me when I am running trains, can see. Ugh!
Luckily, I can reach the left edge of that "ugly area" where the backdrop would eventually be (by standing near the door seen at the left in the photo above), so my plan was to make a backdrop and "slide it in" from there. The photo below shows a "trick" I use often now. I use extruded aluminum 1/2 U channel as a guide to keep the backdrop located near the wall. Here you see the U-channel in place. Here, I then just slide the foamboard backdrop in from this end.
I used contact cement to attach two 36 x 30 inch foamboards together with heavy cardboard on their back, then worked carefully and slowly to trim the edges so they fit in this space. Here you see them when mostly trimmed out correctly, partly but not completely slid into the area from the left as I was checking their fit. They are not not all the way yet, so you still see some of the original acoustic tile. At the upper right corner on this foamboard you can see slots, etc., cut into it so that it will around the edges of shelves to the right when slid the rest of the way in.
I then painted the foamboard with flat sky-blue latex paint using a cheap short-bristle trim roller . . .
Then used a brush and flat white to add some clouds - I am not an expert on making clouds: I checked out some websites and youtube videos from artists on how they make clouds first . . . pretty easy - just use a light touch and make them "flatter on the bottom" and puffier above.
Then disaster struck: check the two photos above carefully, particularly the first of the two (before the clouds are added). See the far end of the foamboard? It is warped, slightly bowed. As the paint hardened more over the next few days it warped further, until it was about twice to three times as bad as shown and unusable: I need it to be flat so it stays close to the wall. If you paint foamboard with latex, the paint soaks into the paper and, as is slightly shrinks as it dries, pulls the paper tight and warps the board.
Not shown in photos: first, I painted the other side of my backdrop with the same flat latex in the hope it would shrink-dry and warp the panel back flat. That did not work.
So I re-did the backdrop again. I spray-painted te two new foamboard pieces with Rustoleum (oil based) gray primer first, let that thoroughly dry (24 hours) and then used those and re-did the backdrop: gluing the two together (and this time covering the seam in front with paper so it would not be visible, which I also then sprayed with primer), then cutting, trimming, and fitting, and painting them sky blue with the latex paint and roller again, then doing clouds. I was back to where I had been, but with flat panels now.
I used some blue gray and green-gray paint and added mountains in the distance and hills nearer . . . .
Previous, on another thread, I had discussed my backdrop 2 area, which I did with printed-paper on boardboard. Here you see those buildings, and they look very good and are extremely lightweight, if a bit delicate. Certainly this method would have worked here for the building fronts I needed, but as I said, I wanted to use Ameri-Towne panels on this one.
I made the six buildings and the four "background things" shown below . . .
Four of the six buildings are more than three-windows wide and involved cutting and re-assembling panels.
I have a set of warehouses made from Ameri-Towne kit back panels, that is located on this backdrop so it is right across the tracks from my train station . . . I put a few logos and such on them just for some minor eye candy here . . . Note the water tower. It is not painted on (that would probably have worked) but was "assembled from eleven pieces of very thin (.025) inch plastic, cut and glued together. It is about 1/2 inch taller than you see here - the lower ends of the legs, etc., are slipped under the back of the building in front of it.
I made four such things: a church, the water tower, an office building, and a smokestack. I actually spent a lot of time - maybe an hour, moving things around and thinking about where I wanted what building and where the tower and church should go, and settled on this . .
Note: on building fronts (or building kits you bash) into more than three-windows wide, to get the proper look you have to trim some of the edge away (red line here) in order to preserve the right window spacing when you put the panel together.
Note the five-window building on the right has the right space on the upper floors. Also note at the bottom, a first floor building front is centered, and then spare window pieces (from what was left of the one panel for the upper floors trimmed to just five windows) were applied on both sides. sort of like fitting together a puzzle. You often have gaps between assembled pieces that look bad - I fill these with yellow glue and let in harden, then paint the panels with flat spray paint. You can see I used flat paint to add some trim color around windows, doors, etc.
Windows, curtains, stuff showing through the windows. First, I make the windows by taping (Gorilla tape: it will never let go) clear plastic, in this case these areoverhead transparency sheets, to the back of the panels. This is the back of nine-window wide apartment building (far left on the backdrop) which is just three building fronts glued side by side to make a big boarding house/apartment building. I then painted "curtains" and "lamp shades" and some furnuiture showing from behind, using a brush and latex paint . . . once that dries, I spray the whole back of this with black rattle can paint to make the rest of the "window area" dark.
An advantage of using latex and a brush on the clear plastic film is that it will streak slightly unless you apply a second coat. That can be an advantage if you use the grain of the streaks right: note here, it looks like the folds in curtains and drapes.
Anyway, once the paint dried I attached the buildings to the backdrop. I simply drilled tiny holes in the buildings and through the foambaord and "sewed" them to the foamboard with string worked through the holes, then painted the string the building's color really quickly. I then slid the whole assembly in along the U-channel as a guide, and fitted a nice oak frame-cap on the end on the left that holds it firmly in place.
It looks really good, just what I wanted. Not only is the look neater, but the backdrops and buildings give the impression my ,little town of San Beattadaise, while not a city, is a good size town. Just what I wanted.
